This thesis will work to illuminate the significant similarities between Johann Georg Hamann and Søren Kierkegaard; a relationship that is often referred but rarely attended to. The lines of correspondence are both hidden and pronounced in their early work—Hamann in Socratic Memorabilia and Kierkegaard in the Concept of Irony. Peculiarly, both Hamann and Kierkegaard employ the ambiguous figure of Socrates in order to impede the rush of philosophy towards absolute knowledge. This is to say that the two writers discern a move towards a world ordering morality that tramples over the perspective of the subject. Hamann and Kierkegaard will counter this move towards the grounding of philosophy into a universal system by re-casting Socrates in an ambiguous light; a mediating figure strung between ideality and actuality. Hamann and Kierkegaard both use Socrates in order to open religious dimensions in the currents of modern philosophy. Hamann and Kierkegaard share common foundations (Lutheranism), common objectives (elevating experience over knowledge), and common vehicles in their argumentation (Socrates and Socratic ignorance). / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2004. / April 7, 2004. / Kierkegaard, Hamann, Socrates, Concept of Irony, Religion, Subjectivity / Includes bibliographical references. / David Kangas, Professor Directing Thesis; Martin Kavka, Committee Member; Sumner Twiss, Committee Member.

In liberal democracies, debates about the status of women and debates about the authority of religious legal-moral systems often converge in the area of family law. Focusing on domestic violence, I show a patriarchal bias pervades both Islamic and liberal moral discourse. In order to argue effectively for women's rights, we must address the relationship between secular law, religious identity and legal expression, and gender. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2012. / April 30, 2012. / domestic violence, gender, Islam, sharia, trust / Includes bibliographical references. / John Kelsay, Professor Directing Dissertation; Joseph Travis, University Representative; Sumner B. Twiss, Committee Member; Aline H. Kalbian, Committee Member; Martin Kavka, Committee Member.

This paper will discuss the interaction between renowned Hindu reformer Rammohun Roy, and Christian Unitarians, in the early 19th century. Roy, while predominately known as a Hindu theologian and social reformer, also demonstrated a strong interest in Unitarian Christianity, and maintained correspondence with many Unitarians throughout his lifetime. An examination of Roy's biography, paying special attention to his religious education, and his experiences in Calcutta, his religious writings, his interactions with Christian Unitarians, and his available correspondence will all be used to help explain why Roy was interested in Unitarian Christianity. Previous attempts to examine this issue, have focused primarily on theology, trying to like Roy's personal religious or theological influences with his interest in Unitarianism. However by examining Roy's life, particularly his published correspondence, along with his interaction with Unitarians, this paper will argue that it is ethical and practical concerns, not theological ones, that drove Roy's interest in Unitarianism, and help explain his reluctance to publicly discuss his personal beliefs about Unitarianism. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester 2015. / May 8, 2015. / Bengal Renaissance, Rammohan Roy, Unitarianism / Includes bibliographical references. / Kathleen Erndl, Professor Directing Thesis; Bryan Cuevas, Committee Member; Claudia Liebeskind, Committee Member.

Despite her popularity within certain sects of Tibetan Buddhism, little focuses work has been done on the dharma protectress Achi Chökyi Drölma. Venerated as the guardian of the Drikung Kagyü tradition, as the maternal great-grandmother of its founder, Jikten Sumgön (1143-1217), and as a human embodiment of the fully-enlightened female Buddha Vajrayoginī, this little-researched but influential deity maintains numerous diverse roles within her community of lay and monastic devotees. Drawing on primary and secondary sources, this thesis examines Achi's uncommon characterizations beyond the typical mundane Buddhist dharma protector, which I categorize into three separate but at times overlapping personas: 1) Hagiographic Achi, as seen in her portrayal as a Tibetan Buddhist saint 2) Ritualized Achi, as portrayed in her roles of fierce protecttress and boon-granting goddess, and; 3) Historical Achi, or rather, the possible viability of the existence of such female teacher in the history of Jikten Sumgön's genealogy. This is done first with an exploration of Achi's iconography and ritual associations, which have roots in Indian tantric traditions, followed by the history of the domain over which she is sovereign, The Drikung valley region. I then provide a full translation of one of her more recent hagiographies and examine its meanings and implications in relation to the genre of Tibetan religious biography, an end with a look at the impact the roles of women and issues of gender in Buddhist narrative and Tibetan culture have had on the portrayal of Achi as a mother, ritual consort, an teacher. This single case study, therefore, sheds light not only on the construction of religious figures and divine entities within a given cultural sphere, but at the influence gender and normative social values play on the perception of such constructions. In conclusion, I argue these two points: First, that Achi, and other semi-wrathful deities like her, as able to assume different and seemingly contrary roles because they embody a specifically Tibetan Buddhist cultural repertoire grounded in indigenous beliefs and imported religious and social constructs, and second, that while the deity's voluntary assumption of a female body specifically to give birth to a lineage may appear to exemplify the presence of an androcentric gaze in Buddhist narrative, reducing her to a mere reproductive function and an association with a male authority figure, such activities actually stem from a legacy of both religious male and female figures who have used the activities of the house-holder life as skillful mean in spreading the Buddha's teachings. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2011. / March 18, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Bryan Cuevas, Professor Directing Thesis; Kathleen Erndl, Committee Member; Jimmy Yu, Committee Member.

4QInstruction has enriched our understanding of the way Second Temple Jewish authors interpreted Genesis 1-3. This Qumran text provides a fuller sense of the ways the figure of Adam was read during that period by adding a sectarian and primarily positive take on the biblical portrayals of the first human. Further, with 4QInstruction we are able to identify traditions that influenced other Early Jewish authors, such as Philo and the author of 4 Ezra. Philo's double creation accounts in Leg. 1.31-32 and Opif. 134-35 suggest that, although significantly influenced by Hellenistic thought, his interpretation of Genesis 1-3 was also shaped by Palestinian Jewish tradition. The author of 4 Ezra, although colored by the apocalyptic tradition in light of the destruction of the temple, turns to Genesis 1-3 exegetical traditions attested in 4QInstruction primarily to articulate the future rewards of righteous Israelites who obey the Torah. It is reasonable that Philo and 4 Ezra appropriated and reworked exegetical traditions regarding Genesis 1-3 attested in Palestinian wisdom literature in Palestine in the second century B.C.E. 4QInstruction also allows us to observe a larger shift from reading Adam in a sectarian manner in association with the elect and the angels in the second century B.C.E. to the primary way to account for human sinfulness in the first century C.E. This is exemplified in 4 Ezra. 4QInstruction not only provides a better understanding of the traditions used by individual Second Temple authors, the more complete picture of how Adam was interpreted during this period reveals a larger trend that was not available before the publication of this sapiential Qumran text. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2013. / June 4, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references. / Matthew Goff, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jennifer Koslow, University Representative; Nicole Kelley, Committee Member; Trevor Luke, Committee Member; David Levenson, Committee Member.

This dissertation investigates the relationship between religion, slavery, and evolving notions of humanity in eighteenth-century colonial New England. During the seventeenth-century, New Englanders largely conceived of slavery in terms of their communal notion of society, which was characterized by a high degree of collective solidarity, and within this context the humanity of slaves went largely unquestioned. This communalist view of New England was gradually displaced by a more commercial ethos, expedited and then reinforced by commerce, the law, and travel narratives, in which slaves became dehumanized. Religion played a key role in this process as it mediated the shift toward a more individualistic view of Christianity, in which moral virtue and the treatment of slaves became something more associated with the lives of individual Christians rather than the larger society. This project discusses how many eighteenth-century New Englanders came to think about the humanity of African slaves in order to understand the influence that this thought had on their embrace of the institution of slavery. In order to do this, this dissertation investigates how New Englanders' original religious understanding of Africans as human beings who should be converted and integrating into the society, albeit at a much lower status, conflicted with social traditions that described them as animal-like, a legal system that came to define the majority of blacks in the region as property, and an economic system that encouraged thinking about African slaves as just another form of chattel. Rather than assuming that Christianity and slavery were inherently incompatible, this dissertation looks at how the religious convictions of many colonists changed to allow for the dehumanization of slaves, while others came to reject the institution of slavery instead. The first chapter of this project aims to situate its contribution by discussing works on slavery in the colonial period, religion in the colonial Northeast, and studies that focus on the evolution of slavery in the early Republic. Chapter two begins a discussion of eighteenth-century change by investigating how debates about slavery in colonial New England evolved. Both published supporters and opponents of slavery during the colonial period largely agreed that slaves were fully human, but by the time of the American Revolution, claims of their natural inferiority had gained support as people began to print tracts that explicitly questioned Africans' humanity. Chapter three begins a three-part discussion of how colonial culture functioned to distinguish blacks from whites and how this gradually led many colonists to accept the view that Africans were innately different than Europeans. The third chapter focuses on how Africans were portrayed as animal-like in many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century travel narratives, and chapter four goes on to discuss Massachusetts' legal codes and explains how the law there changed the status of slaves in New England over time, dehumanizing them by categorized them primarily as property. Chapter five adds to this discussion by explaining the relationship between the changing religious and economic cultures in New England and how these changes led colonists to embrace the dehumanization of slaves and the slave trade. The final chapter investigates how the above-mentioned changes influenced arguments about the validity of slavery in the early Republic. By the time of the Revolution, debates about the right to own slaves focused much more on whether Africans were best understood as humans or as lesser beings. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 27, 2013. / colonial New England, Race and religion / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; John Kelsay, Committee Member.

This dissertation offers an answer to the question of how the Midwest, specifically the middle Mississippi Valley, came to be the American heartland. In this dissertation, I argue that evangelicalism was instrumental in the making of the Midwest as America's heartland. I propose that evangelicals in the region promoted an image of their homeland as the 'center' of America as a way of claiming the region as the heartland. By doing so, they were also making claims about the religious and cultural identity of the nation. Throughout American history, groups have contested the meaning of America. During the nineteenth century, regional groups specifically contested that meaning on the grounds of regional commercial, social, and cultural interests. Evangelicals in the Mississippi Valley were no different. They promoted their idea of America and of its heartland through two periodicals published in St. Louis, Missouri, during the middle of the nineteenth century: the Central Baptist and the Methodist Central Christian Advocate. Specifically, I narrate the ways that evangelical religion offered the communicative tools for these periodicals to reflect the development of the idea of America's heartland as regional and national self-fashioning. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2011. / June 1, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / John Corrigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Edward Gray, University Representative; Amanda Porterfield, Committee Member; Amy Koehlinger, Committee Member.

While many histories of the long Progressive Era acknowledge that faith mattered to President Woodrow Wilson, few seriously consider the crucial role religion played in shaping his foreign policy specifically and twentieth-century U.S. foreign relations more broadly. As a result, this dissertation examines the life and legacy of the twenty-eighth President of the United States in order to better understand the religious context informing the expansion of America's global responsibilities. Contrary to conventional wisdom, which assumes that the "sacred" and the "secular" are always separate, I assert that religion played a consistent and significant role in U.S. foreign relations during the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning with Wilson's childhood and the development of his unique relationship to Presbyterianism and ending with the so-called "resurrection" of Wilson's ideals during World War II, this project provides a more robust treatment of the role of religion and American foreign policy in the early twentieth century. Although Wilson spoke of "church" and "state" as separate entities, his lived experience in the White House demonstrates that there was no functional difference between his "religious" and "political" life. Accordingly, when President Wilson introduced the Covenant of the League of Nations to the American public in 1919 he revealed a vision for a new world order informed by current global affairs and, I assert, by his longstanding commitment to liberal Protestantism. Not merely a biography, this dissertation moves from Wilson to his opponents who also crafted their foreign policy position according to their ideological commitments. On the Senate floor and at public forums around the country, Wilson opponents criticized the League of Nations according to theological justifications for God's order, national sovereignty, and American exceptionalism. Histories of American religion often describe the early twentieth century as a time of a "two-party" system divided between "modernists" and "fundamentalists." I expand this conversation by connecting the discord among American Protestants about being "in" the world but not "of" it to public debates that pitted isolationists against internationalists. This bitter Protestant division during the post-war and interwar period had consequences in American foreign policy that have been too long neglected. World War I revealed the intensity of the Protestant establishment's competing notions of God's order and American exceptionalism. This disunity reached its breaking point when President Wilson unveiled his Covenant of the League of Nations to Congress and the American public. As Wilson tried to put his liberal, social Christian values to practice at the Paris Peace Conference, conservative Protestants renewed their convictions that the United States should be a white, Protestant nation. The Ku Klux Klan and other nativist organizations gained members just as Wilson sought to actualize a "brotherhood of man" under the "fatherhood of God" and the League of Nations. Public support for a liberal Protestant internationalism shifted under Wilson's feet and the Senate, influenced by Fundamentalist discourse, failed to ratify his chief foreign policy initiative. In the wake of nativist resurgences, liberal Protestants, Catholics, and Jews focused their energies on re-narrating American democracy and American exceptionalism in the 1930s and 1940s. Political figures like Franklin Delano Roosevelt who served in the Wilson administration turned public discourse toward an Americanism that looked beyond the nation's borders and valued religion generally. Resurrected as "Wilsonianism," Wilson's internationalism received a makeover that reformulated Wilson's liberal Presbyterianism as "Judeo-Christian." This process causes diplomatic historians to characterize Wilson and his approach to foreign policy as generally "religious" or "moralistic," rather than connect Wilsonian internationalism to the distinctly liberal Protestant roots from which he developed his ideology. Sitting at the intersection of Religious Studies, American Studies, and International Relations, this dissertation engages in a cross disciplinary dialogue. With a more robust analysis of the role religion played in the Wilson administration, this dissertation connects changes in American religious life to public policy trends; corrects misperceptions about the nature of religion in the public sphere (especially those that assume a sharp separation between "the sacred" and "the secular") and contributes to the growing interest in religion and politics in the twentieth century by tracing the origins of popular Cold War trends. With a more sophisticated approach to "religion," this dissertation departs from diplomatic histories that evaluate personal religious sagas or religious lobbying only; in contrast, I narrate the ways in which several modes of religious thought and expression operate underneath the surface of "pragmatic" policy concerns to better understand the complexities that motivate power relations generally and U.S. international relations specifically. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2013. / May 21, 2013. / American History, American Religious History, evangelicalism, International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson, World War I / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Michael Creswell, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Sumner Twiss, Committee Member.

This dissertation describes the creation of a myth of America's religious heritage. This myth revolved around an assertion of foundational religious principles that established and supported American freedom. These values and the freedom they engendered were ambiguous, but necessitated a love of both God and nation, a commitment to free market economics, and a large, global military force. Finally, the myth's contributors constantly warned of both external enemies who sought to destroy America's guiding principles and the erosion of those principles by Americans who either forgot or denied the country's religious heritage. Americans have advocated for aspects of this myth through much of the nation's history, most notably the idea that God imbued America with a special status and destiny in world affairs. However, American leaders only developed this myth into a paradigmatic impetus for governmental action during the Second World War and early Cold War. Various political, religious, military, and business leaders developed and employed this myth for both similar and cross purposes. Although their efforts were not a direct collusion, their tendency to build on each other's rhetoric and resources often made them beholden to each other's interests. Most notably, their consistent elevation of religion in a narrative of American dominance played a principal role in the emergence of the United States as the world's foremost military power. The contributors to the myth of America's religious heritage cast freedom as a divine gift that the nation had to both ardently defend and compassionately export abroad. They then almost unanimously identified the military as the nation's stalwart defenders and the epitome of all that made America righteous and good, thus making the military an essential aspect of America's material and spiritual security. This development disabused many Americans of their traditional distrust of large standing armies and made a massive military presence an essential part of the nation's structure. American leaders' mutual use of the myth provided a common vocabulary, grammar, and collection of themes that they could use to locate and place themselves in comparison with others. These contributors, eager to command followers and craft a national identity consistent with their interests, also fashioned characterizations of American religion that shifted away from traditional institutions toward a more general sphere of public and private influence. Eschewing former theological, doctrinal, and liturgical distinctions, religious groups subsequently positioned themselves based on their stances toward militarism, free market capitalism, and "social" issues, a category created during the myth's construction. Such positioning contributed to the increased polarization of American religious communities in the following decades. This polarization and the establishment of America's enormous military apparatus are the enduring legacies of mid-twentieth century America's faith in freedom. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2013. / June 21, 2013. / American History, Politics, Race, Religion, U.S. Presidents, War / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Neil Jumonville, University Representative; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Kurt Piehler, Committee Member; John Kelsay, Committee Member.

This study tells the story of the political reception of Søren Kierkegaard in Weimar Europe. Much of this reception, I argue, is easily framed through the concept of tragic romanticism. While the bulk of this study is devoted to the Weimar reception, it also ventures back into nineteenth-century Denmark in order to see whether or not there are correspondences between Kierkegaard's reception and his production. I argue there are such correspondences between the tragic romantic thought of Kierkegaard's receptors and Kierkegaard himself, though these correspondences are not always easily accessible. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Religion and Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / February 27, 2013. / Kierkegaard, Politics, Revolution, Romanticism, Weber, Weimar / Includes bibliographical references. / Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Dissertation; Darrin McMahon, University Representative; John Kelsay, Committee Member; Sumner B. Twiss, Committee Member.